College Sports Blog

Horn: SEC Network needs high ratings in Florida and Texas to be successful

Keeping in mind there are no guarantees in the cable carriage world, at first blush the SEC Network appears to be a slam dunk for success.

Then again, recall the praise heaped on ESPN and the University of Texas when they partnered to deliver the Longhorn Network in advance of the 2011 college football season.

Two football and basketball seasons in and LHN has no carriage on Time Warner or Comcast cable or on DirecTV or Dish. That’s the murderers’ row of providers in Texas. That leaves LHN a rumor in most homes. Remember New Coke?

Meanwhile, Comcast is the only major provider in the Houston market carrying the Astros. Conveniently, Comcast carries Comcast Sports Houston, the Astros’ new cable home. Some 60 percent of homes in Houston remain Astros-less.

The world of cable and satellite carriage is a cesspool of conflicting business interests. The Southeastern Conference and partner ESPN have something to sell with the SEC Network, but there are potential hurdles.

Can you imagine a carrier in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi or most of the other traditional SEC states opting not to carry a network that will provide Crimson Tide/Tiger or Bulldog or Rebel football games?

The SEC Network will carry a smorgasbord of 45 football games a season. By contrast, LHN offers two.

Which brings us to the states of Texas and Florida, the television giants of the SEC. The sell here and there will be a little more difficult.

Alums of Texas’ Big 12 schools will lobby their carriers to not pick up the network of Texas A&M. Kind of the same way Aggie and Baylor and Texas Tech and TCU fans had little interest in paying more to their carrier for the privilege of watching LHN.

There are a lot of Gator fans in Florida, but so too are there Florida State, Miami, South Florida and Central Florida loyalists who would rather pass on paying to see anything that benefits the Gators.

Money wasn’t mentioned when the SEC Network was formally introduced Thursday. But we do know the Big Ten Network brings in about 80 cents a month per subscriber in the states with schools in the conference.

It wouldn’t be unreasonable to conclude that the SEC Network will seek something similar per household. That’s from just about every home in the footprint with cable. The SEC Network, like LHN, will demand to be on basic digital, not some fancy sports tier with less distribution.

There are about 19 million cable, satellite and telecom homes in SEC country. Florida is the big dog with approximately 5.2 million homes. No. 2 would be Texas with about 4.5 million. They make up a smidge more than half the homes in the 14-team conference.
SEC football is so delicious that I’m betting eventually its network will be available to every home in its footprint. But it will be a near miracle if all carriers are on board when the network debuts before the 2014 season.

Put another way: There’s a better chance the SEC will be coming off its eighth consecutive football national championship.Follow Barry Horn on Twitter at @bhorn55.

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